Become a Network Operations Specialist

Network operations specialists are the experts in monitoring, maintaining, and repairing enterprise systems. They are the main alert team for any downtime on the network. They help teams identify current network issues, and they work with these teams to quickly respond to errors and hardware failures. These applications must be able to think quickly, and they need the right customer support skills to help employees communicate errors to the appropriate infrastructure teams. They must be able to use various monitoring software and understand when reports show unusual activity and behavior.

What Does a Network Operations Specialist Do?

Working in the NOC (network operations center) can be stressful, but these applicants are provided ways to identify and classify network issues across the globe. They must be able to quickly identify an issue through monitoring software and contact the right team to resolve it. They don’t normally perform any hands-on repairs, but network operations specialists have a competitive edge if they’ve worked in any type of IT administration field. These applicants continually monitor the network and report back to key stakeholders with findings that include performance issues, unusual traffic, faulty hardware and recommendations for improvements.

Network Operations Specialist Job Responsibilities and Duties

Most daily tasks in the NOC are related to monitoring network activity. These monitors display statistics that the network operations specialist must be able to analyze. Analysis of monitoring tools is the main job responsibility. Applicants also make recommendations based on their analysis and review of monitoring reports.

Job responsibilities include:

Monitor all hardware components of a global network including routers, switches, and servers

Since network operations specialists need to be quick with resolutions, hands-on experience is beneficial to applicants. The way to get this hands-on experience is through other job opportunities. Applicants can work in other IT fields to get the necessary experience to allow them to troubleshoot various network issues. For any applicant competing for these positions, the IT industry offers several opportunities for hands-on, related experience. Most of these positions give applicants the ability to recognize performance issues immediately, which helps mitigate downtime costs.

Network Operations Specialist Soft Skills

Soft skills are necessary for communication. Whether it’s emailing contacts or orally communication ideas and support issues, the network operations specialist needs these oral skills to be successful in their career. Written skills are necessary for documentation including support ticket references and email communication. Most IT departments have meetings where applicants must be able to articulate ideas and relay information to appropriate teams.
Soft skills include:

Communication with managers and other team members

Documenting network design and any infrastructure flaws

Suggesting upgrades to managers that improve network performance

Attending meetings that review network issues and improvements

Network Operations Specialist Degree & Education Requirements

The IT industry offers several opportunities for people without a college degree. Years of hands-on experience are usually more valuable than a college degree, but college degrees help applicants with competitive job opportunities. NOC positions are sometimes given to applicants who are in college and working towards a degree. For applicants who want to get a competitive edge with a college degree, computer science, computer engineering, and information systems are three main college bachelor degrees relevant to the industry.

Network Operations Specialist Work Experience

Hard skills are the hands-on experience that helps a network operations specialist with this job opportunity. Since NOC management is more of a hands-on experience job opportunity with hardware and software systems that manage the network, hard skills are necessary for job applicants. Job applicants don’t need every skill, but working with network components help give them the ability to resolve issues quickly.
Hard skills include:

Networking protocols including TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, and DNS

Router vendors and command line utilities to manage router and switch configurations

Monitoring software and analysis ability to work with these software applications

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